


as long as you like

by bastaerd



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Comfort No Hurt, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Post-Rescue, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 02:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29992413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastaerd/pseuds/bastaerd
Summary: Henry drops the pail by the door and sets the pole in it, standing it upright so that it leans against the cabinet. “Smells like butter,” he says, and then John feels a pair of arms about his waist. “And eggs.”“And no fish,” John replies.“They don’t bite."“Some might, if you give them time to come around to the idea.”
Relationships: John Bridgens/Henry "Harry" Peglar
Comments: 13
Kudos: 23





	as long as you like

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iamnassau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamnassau/gifts).



> happy birthday elizaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hope you have a wonderful day.  
> title is from _You Can Close Your Eyes_ by james taylor. i am incapable of listening to this song directly with my ears.

They are happy now.

That was the one thing John had promised himself and one of the countless things he had privately promised Henry in those precarious weeks between rescue and the English shore. If nothing else was certain-- and, over the course of his many years, John found that so few things were that planning with them in mind was an exercise in futility-- they would at least be home, wherever they decided home was, and they would be happy. It began as a litany in the back of his mind, like a rope thrown out to a man overboard that he held onto to inch his way back to safety. Once Henry had taken his first sip of water, cloudy with lemon pulp, and coughed it out over his shirt and then taken another, slower sip without fear of wastage, it had turned into something more like a hope.

That’s the thing, John has found, with certainty: it leaves cracks for hope to fill in. He trims some parsley from the pot on the windowsill and throws it in with the eggs he’s frying.

This is their home now, this small house far enough from the clamor of city life that no one is inclined to ask questions about them-- except for those who know them, such as Henry’s sister, and the handful of their fellow survivors with whom they’ve grown close, in which case they’re happily up to their knees in questions every time they gather the post-- and close enough so as not to put an undue burden on them when they need to shop or to send a letter. Their life together is as solitary as they wish it to be. After the long years in close quarters, it comes as a relief; after the peril they endured, it comes as a comfort. They keep a regular correspondence with Crozier and Fitzjames, and it’s John’s impression that the two like to keep abreast of what everyone else is up to, a pale but freer substitute for captaincy. In lieu of knighthoods, they’ve conferred unto themselves the title of mother hen.

Like Henry, it’s unlikely that Fitzjames will ever sail again, and, like John, it’s unlikely Francis will take to the sea again without him.

The door creaks on its hinge as Henry enters, his fishing pole swatting the frame. In his hand is an empty metal pail, swinging against his leg. He enjoys the idea of fishing more than he enjoys the activity itself. Patience has never had a great hold on him; sometimes John considers it a miracle that Henry would take up with an old, slow man like him, and Henry, in turn, always seems to sense exactly when John is having a thought like that, because he touches John’s waist and kisses his whiskered cheek and makes it very difficult for him to feel old. 

Henry drops the pail by the door and sets the pole in it, standing it upright so that it leans against the cabinet. “Smells like butter,” he says, and then John feels a pair of arms about his waist. “And eggs.” Both of which are luxuries in which they indulge infrequently, but always together.

“And no fish,” John replies. It’s not a reprimand, but Henry still kisses the back of his neck, where his hair tickles at his collar, as if to soothe one.

“They don’t bite,” he says.

“Some might, if you give them time to come around to the idea.”

Henry scoffs, squeezing John’s waist and then letting go so that John can serve their breakfasts. They both know, without him having to say it, that Henry’s favorite part of going out is the coming home part. It means he gets to do things like this-- coming up behind John while he’s doing something and taking his mind off of whatever that is, and stealing a kiss while he’s at it. He lingers at John’s side, in his periphery, chewing pensively on a sprig of parsley he’s snagged from the cutting board.

When he asks, “Are you lonely, John?” John nearly misses the plate entirely. The egg clings precariously to the lip, and he rushes to tilt it back towards safety so that he can focus his attention on Henry.

“Am I lonely?” he echoes him. Has he given that impression? When, and how? He wipes his hands on a rag and tucks it back over his shoulder. For all his confidence, now Henry looks like he doesn’t know what to do with all this attention he’s been given; he shrugs, looks out the window at their grey little jut of shore. They both find it beautiful in the way a gnarled old tree is beautiful for weathering the years.

“Yeah,” says Henry, appraising the clouds. They’re grey and wispy. Rain’s to come soon.

John touches his elbow. “I’ve got you,” he replies, “and we’ve got all manner of communication from the captains, and from Dr. Goodsir and Collins.” He watches Henry smile, a thin thing, like the clouds, promising a downpour.

“You’ve not taken a posting since we got back,” Henry says. John hasn’t. “I know my days on the water are over, but that’s no reason yours ought to be cut short. You’ve been so many places, even before I knew you and you knew me. It just…” He pinches his lips, sighs. “Seems a shame. Giving that up.”

For a moment, John is speechless. The thought that this, all they’ve got together and all they’ve made for themselves, amounts to something given up unwillingly, baffles him. He’s seen clear blue sunlit skies at night and black star-dotted skies at night, and yet this notion is the most perplexing of all. He flattens his hand against Henry’s arm, rubbing it with his thumb slowly.

“I don’t see it as such,” he replies, his voice gone softer even than it usually goes when Henry’s involved. “I don’t see it that way at all.”

Henry’s lips twitch at the corners, but they don’t stay. His left hand comes up to cover John’s on his arm, squeezing his fingers as a gesture of thanks. “It just seems like so much to trade.”

“It’s a bargain,” John tells him, and when Henry finally looks at him properly, he lays his hand on Henry’s cheek. His thumb sits in the hollow spot just underneath his eye, angled with the crease of his cheek. “I’ve done my traveling. I’ve seen places other men can only read about, if they can even read a true account of it. You and I, we’ve seen some of those places together.”

Even just saying so calls to mind memories of all manner of shore, of the tumble of the sea, of the glint of the sun off of the water. No, John hasn’t given up anything, no more than a man who’s eaten his fill has given up the meal. They have their shore, their sea, their water. More than that, they have a house of their own to live in, small though it is, and their narrow bed to sleep in, though they’ve fucked in narrower, and they have each other to keep for themselves.

“We have,” says Henry, blinking slowly. The fan of his lashes brushes John’s fingertip, and coaxes a smile to his face.

“We have,” John agrees. “I wouldn’t trade any of what came before, just as I’d no sooner trade any of what our lives are now. A life shared with you is more precious than any ocean and any distant shore.” He feels Henry’s cheek round out under his palm and knows that he believes him.

“Even though I can’t catch a fish to save my life?” asks Henry, and John cradles his jaw instead and kisses that cheek.

“If I woke up one morning to find you a patient man, I would wonder what happened to my Henry. Without him, I’d be lonely.”

* * *

They sack out on the couch after dinner, John first, sitting to one side so that he can lean against the arm of the chair and get at the lamplight, and Henry after him, placing himself first beside him, and then steadily closer, until John holds him in his lap, running his fingers gently through his hair as he reads. When he reaches a funny part, or a particularly beautiful passage, or anything the both of them will enjoy, he reads aloud, and Henry closes his eyes to the sound of his voice. This is the sort of thing they have the option of taking for granted now, though neither of them choose to.

Now, Henry feels John pause in his gentle combing, the soft massage of his fingertips stilling on his scalp. He waits a moment; it does not pick up again after a momentary distraction, nor does John start reciting from his book. Like a displeased cat whose petting’s been rudely interrupted, he half-turns, putting his shoulder against John’s chest and affecting an awkward angle so that he can face him.

“What is it, John?” he asks, meaning to sound playful in case something’s the matter. From the look on John’s face, there is something the matter, but he doesn’t consider it anything worth bothering Henry about. On the other hand, John tends to keep things from Henry for his own good, so as not to upset him. Neither of them like to burden themselves with thoughts of King William’s Land, but he knows John holds those memories close, despite himself, because the alternative is to forget. Parts of them will remain there, in some way, like things lost at sea. There was sadness there, and a great deal of guilt, but there was love there, too, all woven through like the patch of a newly-darned sock.

John’s brows are knit like a heavy awning above his eyes. Henry wants to kiss it smooth again, but first, he wants to know what it is that troubles him so badly. “Have I got something on my face?” he guesses, and swipes at his nose just so that John can catch his wrist and straighten his cuff.

“No, it’s not that,” John answers, setting his sleeve to rights but not yet letting go of his hand, which suits Henry just fine. “At any rate, I couldn’t see your face until you turned.”

“Then what is it?” Henry asks again. He pulls the book from John’s other hand and sets it aside on the nearby table. “You can’t tell me something’s not bothering you, I know you better than to believe that.” His expression softens, and he strokes John’s cheek. John’s hand comes up with his arm as he moves it. “Please?”

John sighs. His breath smells like the dinner they’ve just finished eating, before retiring to the couch to read. “You’ve got grey hairs,” he says finally. His lips pull in a funny way. Henry isn’t sure he’s seen them do that before, and doesn’t know what to make of this newly discovered emotion.

“Does that bother you?” he asks, putting his hand to the back of his head as if he can feel out the hairs in question. He knows he does, and flecks of them at his temples, too, courtesy of his convalescence. He had figured John had seen them, and just didn’t find it worth comment. “You’ve got a full head of them-- it’d surprise me if you did.”

“No, no,” John says, shaking his head, and that grey hair of his moves like a starched curtain tickled by a breeze. “I’m not bothered by it, really. Couldn’t really say what I am, to tell you the truth.”

“Upset?” Henry guesses, though he doesn’t think that’s the answer, either. John shakes his head “no” again. “Is it a bad feeling?”

“Not at all.” He can hear the smile in John’s voice, though his brow is still drawn up in what looks like concern. Feels John’s fingers in his hair again, smoothing over the spot at the crown of his head, and then at his temple, beside where his eyebrow ended. “The only way I can describe it is the feeling of finding something you’d not realized you’d lost and had never thought to look for. A flower behind a garden shed that’s grown tall and bright when you finally find it again.”

Henry adjusts himself on John’s lap so that they can see each other without any strange contortions. “But I’ve been here,” he points out. “You couldn’t have lost me.”

The weight of John’s gaze is like that of a warm quilt set about his shoulders. Without his book to hang onto, he now has both hands free, and uses them to hold Henry, one arm about his waist and the other behind his shoulders. They used to assume a similar position, Henry all clutched up to John and John with his arms around him as if he meant to run away with him, in John’s berth, first on the Gannett, and then, later, on Erebus, when they could afford to. Now, it’s no longer a risk. No one is around to pull back the curtain, nor to overhear them barely whispering to each other with words formed by consonants and the shapes of moving lips. They can call each other dear and love and John and Henry here.

John’s thumb works small circles against Henry’s shoulder. “I couldn’t have lost you,” he repeats distantly, and then kisses the spot just above Henry’s cheekbone. “For so long, I’d imagined I had you only with borrowed time. A collection of minutes amounting to hours amounting to a day, all spread out where we could steal them.”

“We made those minutes count,” Henry says, remembering all the ways in which they did. Brief brushes of fingertips against fingertips, notes tucked into the bindings of John’s books, words exchanged practically in code. During their separation in the Arctic, before Henry had volunteered to berth on Erebus, they had had to be cleverer, and missed each other badly. How fortunate, then, that the ice had so encroached upon Terror. How fortunate that their circumstances had grown so dire that none of the survivors cared what came to light.

When John’s nose brushes at Henry’s hairline, he doesn’t feel the prickle of lifting scabs. “We did,” he agrees.

“Now we’ve got as many minutes as we want. So many, we could waste them, if we wished.”

But they don’t wish to. They couldn’t even if they wanted to, for that matter, since no minute spent in the other’s company is a minute gone to waste. It’s what brings a smile to Henry’s face while he moves to hold John’s between his hands, warm from being pressed between their bodies. “You’ve put lines on my face,” he adds, brushing feather-lightly over the crow’s feet at the corners of John’s eyes and at the creases under his cheeks and feeling them deepen under his touch. “You’ll make a wrinkled old page out of me, John.”

John laughs and holds Henry closer, his hands broad against his back, the two of them together spanning over his ribs. “Then a couple of wrinkled old pages we’ll be together.”

It’s a pleasant thought. Here, it feels less like a hope and more like a certainty, an inevitability. The two of them will grow old and older, always within earshot if not arm’s reach of one another. Their time will come, not violently and not unjustly; they may just dissolve into seafoam together and melt away into the rocky shore, to be sluiced away by the tide. They'll go into the water then.  


But they have years yet to go, and they will live them out happily.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](http://edward-little.tumblr.com).


End file.
